Some Memories...
Dennis Clarke was President of Citizen's Commission on Human Rights for many years, before Miscavige pulled a coup on him behind his back, leaving him stranded in Mexico (late 80's?) while heavy third-party was being generated and criminal Jan Eastgate was imported from Australia, where she had covered up Scio crimes (I do not know many more details than that). Dennis came back from his hard-working tour through Mexico to find he'd been taken off post!
I am sure it was maddening for him the rest of his life, to never know that the COB had engineered such a heartless and brutal attack on a really effective spokesperson against criminal psychiatry. (I tried to drop such a hint to him when I got him to look at DM's criminality before I was outed and declared SP in May 2012, but he believed in David Miscavige to the end because as he put it, he'd witnessed David "handle Shelly so wonderfully" when they'd gotten out of their limo where they had apparently been fighting, just before arriving for a movie showing at Flag, and felt that "proved" DM had "compassion" - yeah, I know...).
Dennis Clarke was the first winner of the IAS Freedom Medal, which in that day was actually awarded for something real. I'm pretty sure that this status showered on him by David Miscavige blinded him to the later, brutal betrayals of this despot against him.
I am aware of his earliest days womanizing in CCHR (which won him some female enemies in OSA), his infiltration work for RTC's nasty FairGame operation against David Mayo in 1984, and his arguably bullying actions against picketers throughout the 90's - Dennis was a true believer and energetic defender of his religion.
I wanted to share however, some extremely positive points about this man who once helped bail me out of trouble while investigating a corrupt field situation with a criminal fraud operation that went so high up the org board that my own post was seriously threatened and I was on the edge of a Comm-Ev removal from post for "attacking an upstat."
(I will tell that exciting story on my own thread because it's too long for right here, and so it's not that appropriate. Dennis did some impressive investigative work and helped me shut down a criminal and got me exonerated from doubts over what I was doing with the case.)
To me, Dennis was a person of integrity and head and shoulders above the typical corporate scientologist in that regard. I think that he kept my secret in regards to tipping him off about the criminality of Miscavige coming to light in the emerging Tampa Bay Times Truth Rundown (he told me that of all the people - opinion leaders included - my alert to him in the form of an impassioned appeal message, was the only one that got him to really "look"), and in return I had already kept and continued to keep, his originations in confidence that OSA was infiltrated with "agents" and that some were actively working on taking him out (as in "killing" him), which I know seems paranoid, but from what I knew then and what I know now, I still believe to have distinct possibilities of being valid. Of course, I know that by the time of Marty's article, his mind was beginning to break down and this lingering feeling of persecution, rooted in older situations, became a source of great distress to him.
David Miscavige really had long been "after him," even if the greatest danger was no more.
I have no problem believing internal operations of such an alarming nature did occur in this criminal organization deep within OSA, along with parallel operations being run by outside agencies, some with interests supporting, some with interests against, Scientology.
I have no faintest doubt that David Miscavige was continually upset at Dennis Clarke's Opinion Leader status and his incredible influence over the field, and his integrity such that if things like the "illegal 6-mo. checks" (which did raise Dennis's interest greatly when I pointed it out) or David Miscavige's betrayal of the public by violence and inurement of IAS and other funds, ever got through those filters of his defending his "religion," he had the capability of bringing more down than even Debbie Cook did with her OL status and letter. If you could have convinced this man that those crimes really did exist, he would not have tolerated it for a minute.
Dennis could not break away in the end, and when I, still "under the radar" and making preparations to drive to Clearwater and give him assists (about to bring an e-meter which in retrospect was dumb because although I had no great "back-off" - it would have not been okay with anyone since I was not of his case level - OT V), called him up at his Clearwater assisted-living home, he asked me point-blank if I was in "good standing" to which I replied honestly, "yeah, technically, but I think I'm in trouble" - he politely and graciously thanked me for the offer and said I should not drive all the way out to do that (plus other friends were rightly worried about my safety in Clearwater since it was becoming more and more obvious I wasn't really "under the radar" anymore with OSA - they had people around Dennis who in retrospect as I write this, must have had access to his computer where my treasonous e-mails could be found).
So I'll break it down into simple points some of the things he did during the time I knew him, which was long after all the work he did with major media appearances speaking out against barbaric practices of criminal psychiatry (I neither stupidly believe psychiatry has the answers to the mind, nor go to the other extreme and deny that there are not some decent psychiatrists, like Jung, Berne, and many others, very much worthy of study).
*Dennis Clarke stood up boldly and spoke against the war when Bush had 90% approval ratings and much of the scientology field was very caught up in this and justifying the war (which as you know turned out to be illegal and practically baseless). He did not just "shout people down" though - he painstakingly developed his arguments and presentations using a combination of LRH quotes and inspired writings from other sources. On this Dynamic he demonstrated that he was a man of peace and steadfastly against the brutality of war.
*By the time of the 2004 elections, a number of scientologists were becoming so blatantly political that e-mails began circulating from "official" church (Sea Org!) terminals caught up in it. Dennis and I talked about this epidemic at length, and though I was in transition to Costa Rica, I still had the ear of OSA Int, and we both put in the "Scientology is non-political" datum in "with a bang" - not - for the reason of tax-exempt status (which won the day with OSA) - but on principle. Dennis had taught me the mechanism in the mind that drives people to extremes (it is in the technical material on the Goals-Problem-Mass and audited on OT II to some degree) for which I will be forever grateful, since even without ever doing OT II it freed me from group-think and compulsion to "play teams" and "choose sides" (things that by the way, helped me straighten out in myself, a sense of real justice in contrast to Hubbard's fake "us vs. them" justice rampant in Scio think).
*Dennis pushed the breaking Vitamin D research (some would say too far, but the important point is that it has turned out to be highly important health information) with a constant stream of high-quality technical articles and presentations - he cared about getting this vital information out - and we both figured out an important truth with regards to race and skin color in humanity, and that is that the only reason for varying skin color and especially lighter skin for the human body at Northern latitudes, is to accomplish the absorption of Vitamin D from solar exposure, so that young females could develop bone structure suitable for childbirth (today they solve that unnaturally, with C-section births).
*Dennis was greatly concerned about reports of arsenic contamination in wells being drilled for third world populations, and he actually traveled overseas to investigate it first-hand. In the end he found that the contamination was "natural" (deposits of arsenic-concentrated veins in the earth) but we both remained suspicious, considering the WHO (World Health Org) was involved and people were being poisoned. The point here - whatever you believe about our suspicions - is that he cared enough to spend the time and go and look for himself.
*Dennis continually blew the whistle on numerous "ponzi schemes" that fanatic and unethical scientologists would continually concoct in hopes of getting rich and getting up the expensive Bridge. He was continually attacked by those who knew they were being foiled. Dennis demanded that businesses have exchangeable products and did not look well on pyramid schemes, at all.
*Dennis continually campaigned for justice using the most sensible quotes he could find (not limited to LRH). He was pushing Human Rights long before OSA finally came out with their campaigns after 2002 (and this ties back to my comment about his passion for peace within and between nations).
Yes, I know you some of you who were on the receiving end of this guy at protests will probably spot some uncomfortable ironies here - but Dennis was no typical, robotic, corporate scientologist. His example of integrity in many areas, was positively inspiring to me - and I know to many others in the scientologist community - and, in the end, this was part of the inspiration I would need to summon the courage to leave the criminal church, and to eventually today, continue whistleblowing and campaigning for real justice.
Dennis Clarke had quite a positive impact on my life.
Although I ended up cut off by "Disconnection" from Dennis, I always hoped he was doing well, and I know for certain that there is going to be quite a powerful being coming back to this earth in the near future.